No summons mocked by chill delay,
No petty gains disdained by pride,
The modest wants of every day
The toil of every day supplied."
Johnson's verses, compared with Lord Macaulay's prose, strikingly shew how the same subject can be degraded or elevated by the mode of treatment; and how easily the historian or biographer, who expands his authorities by picturesque details, may brighten or darken characters at will.
To complete the picture of Johnson's interior, it should be added that the inmates of his house were quarrelling from, morning to night with one another, with his negro servant, or with himself. In one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale, he says, "Williams hates everybody: Levet hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams: Desmoulins hates them both: Poll (Miss Carmichael) loves none of them." In a conversation at Streatham, reported by Madame D'Arblay, the menagerie was thus humorously described:—
"Mrs. Thrale.—Mr. Levet, I suppose, Sir, has the office of keeping the hospital in health? for he is an apothecary.
"Dr. J.—Levet, Madam, is a brutal fellow, but I have a good regard for him; for his brutality is in his manners, not his mind.
"Mr. Thrale.—But how do you get your dinners drest?
"Dr. J.—Why De Mullin has the chief management of the kitchen; but our roasting is not magnificent, for we have no jack.